EDITORIAL - Television's latest horror show

The most gratifying moment in the entire fact-finding investigation into the August 23 hostage fiasco came yesterday when Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, the probe committee chairman, said the committee was finally winding up its job, or at least the public portion of it.

The investigation, covered live, had become the latest horror show on television. Had not de Lima herself announced yesterday its termination, the temptation was great that somebody would issue the call for her.

Anybody who followed the proceedings live on television, even for just five minutes, was bound to conclude that the investigators did not have a clear idea why they were there in the first place. It was like the botched rescue all over again, only this time without the violence.

The normal expectation of the public regarding any fact-finding mission is that it is constituted to find out what happened, why it happened, and to recommend certain actions to make sure it does not happen again.

But that is not what transpired during the proceedings. Not only were the investigators not clear about what they wanted to find out, they were also clearly not qualified to determine why things happened the way they did.

Worse, some of the committee members were quick to pass judgment or engage the resource persons in an argument. For example, what did de Lima mean when she said the RMN network could face criminal charges? And why did Teresita Ang See have to argue with Erwin Tulfo?

If the committee members already arrived at conclusions during the investigation, they should have waited until the termination of the proceedings before puting everything down in their recommendations, instead of showing their hand while they were still investigating.

If the whole effort shed light on anything, it only showed in even greater illumination and detail how this country does things. The investigation, as shown on tv, did not assuage the trauma of August 23. It only served to reinforce whatever is unflattering about us.